id summary reporter owner description type status priority component version resolution keywords cc guest host
5851 "Request for ""Merge"" to distinquish from ""Discard"" with Snapshots" pmikep "I see this is ongoing in ticket #1040. I thought it was just me, but I see others are challenged too.
The problem is, it's not clear when one is ""discarding"" a snapshot (i.e. deleting it) or when one is merging (flattening) a differencing image into a parent. Even tho the wording is the same in the GUI when discarding (i.e., ""Discard""), the behavior is different if one is discarding a specific snapshot or if one is clicking ""discard"" at the top-most level parent of the snapshot(s). So, when you click the top most parent, instead of ""Discard"" shouldn't it say ""Merge"" or ""Flatten""?
Aside from simply being obsessive and liking to fold a working snapshot into the parent, I think this is necessary from a clone hd perspective. How do you clone a parent drive that is tweaked to Snapshot 5 without merging?
The 3.1.2 manual doesn't make it very clear when merging occurs either. And now, that there's branching going on with snapshots, this might not be intuitive. For example, if you want to merge Snapshot 5 out of 10 with the base parent, does that mean you will make the current state be base plus 1 through 5 and automatically delete all the following snapshots? (I think, yes. Might need a new function then, ""Export snapshot"" to bring them back after a lower merge.)
You would need this enhancement if you were installing a vanilla OS, then slowly adding drivers / apps until you got everything tweaked right. After running that way for a month or two, you would want to Merge all the snapshots into the parent so you could clone the virtual disk. As it is now, it's too easy to click ""discard"" on a snapshot, expecting that to be the same as ""Merge."" Can you make the Merge function clearer please?" enhancement closed minor GUI VirtualBox 3.1.2 invalid Merge, snapshots, differencing, clonehd Windows Windows